I think this is a great idea. My understanding from the wiki page is that the full plan involves:
1. We need to *fix compatibility with recent LLVM versions*. This really sucks for users. *Ben Gamari* is working on this, see #9142 <https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/ticket/9142> and ​Phab:D155 <https://phabricator.haskell.org/D155> 2. We need to fix up the LLVM IR generation in GHC, and fix the compiler driver to invoke the tools with a better set of optimizations. *Nathan Howell* has been wrangled into looking into this. 3. We need to ship a pre-built version of LLVM for developers and users, and put them in binary distributions for major platforms. *Austin Seipp* could handle this. 4. We can fix other bugs, like LLVM -split-obj support, which opens the way to shipping GHC with LLVM-optimized base libraries. *Reid Barton* expressed some interest in this. I assume that 1. will come with 7.10.1. Is there any way we could do 3. in one of the 7.10 releases before 7.12.1? Basing this question on Austin's words "we *only* need opt and llc, so the distributions can be tiny. " and "it's not actually very complicated to implement or support, I think." :) I guess it might be more difficult than I think but I thought it was worth asking the question as I believe 3. on its own is worthwhile and would hopefully simplify support for LLVM in GHC. Thanks George On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 8:52 PM, Austin Seipp <aus...@well-typed.com> wrote: > Hi *, > > A few days ago a discussion on IRC occurred about the LLVM backend, > its current status, and what we could do to make it a rock solid part > of GHC for all our users. > > Needless to say, the situation right now isn't so hot: we have no > commitment to version support, two major versions are busted, others > are seriously buggy, and yet there are lots of things we could improve > on. > > So I give you a proposal, from a few of us to you all, about improving it: > > https://ghc.haskell.org/trac/ghc/wiki/ImprovedLLVMBackend > > I won't repeat what's on the wiki page too much, but the TL;DR version > is: we should start packaging a version of LLVM, and shipping it with > e.g. binary distributions of GHC. It's just a lot better for everyone. > > I know we're normally fairly hesitant about things like this (shipping > external dependencies), but I think it's the only sane thing to do > here, and the situation is fairly unique in that it's not actually > very complicated to implement or support, I think. > > We'd like to do this for 7.12. I've also wrangled some people to help. > Those people know who they are (because they're CC'd), and I will now > badger them into submission until it is fixed for 7.12. > > Please let me know what you think. > > PS. Joachim, I would be particularly interested in upstream needs for > Debian, as I know of their standard packaging policy to not duplicate > things. > > -- > Regards, > > Austin Seipp, Haskell Consultant > Well-Typed LLP, http://www.well-typed.com/ > _______________________________________________ > ghc-devs mailing list > ghc-devs@haskell.org > http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/ghc-devs >
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